37 



AMARANTACE^. 



195. Plilotus longistachyus W.V.F. on. sp. 



An erect annual, much branched from the base ; branches 

 greenish striate and, as well as the foliage, scantily wooUy- 

 tomentose ; leaves lanceolate, obtuse, tapering into 

 rather short petioles, very much crisped ; flowers small, 

 closely packed in long cylindrical spikes, which are shortly 

 Pedunculate, and form a large corymbose somewhat leafy 

 panicle ; bracts scarcely a quarter the length of the 

 perianths ; ovate, acute, scarious, with rather prominent 

 darker slightly woolly midribs ; braoteoles broadly ovate, 

 mucronate, shining scarious, shorter than the bracts and 

 along with them persistent on the woolly rhaohis ; perianth- 

 tube very short and densely invested with short articulate 

 straight hairs ; segments trinerved, invested without 

 with long articulate straight hairs, glabrous within, the 

 outer with obtuse bifid or trifid apices, the inner narrower 

 and acute, all narrow-lanceolate ; staminal cup short, 

 free, not surrounded by hairs, the truncate summit ciliate 

 with slightly woolly articulate hairs ; filaments very 

 slender, unequal, all antheriferous ; ovary shortly stipi- 

 tate, with a, slender central style, the summit of the ovary 

 and lower half of the style invested with long straight 

 hairs, otherwise glabrous. 



Upper Isdell River; Mt. Anderson. (W.V.F.). 



Height 3-.5ft. Leaves l-2in. long. Spikes 3-9 in. long, 

 about fin. diameter. Perianth ^m. long, the segments 

 greenish with conspicuous glabrous pink tips. 



Araong sandstone and quartzite rocks. 



Affinity, P. alopecuriodes, F. v. M. 



196. P. astrolasius F. v. M. 



N.W. coast (A. Hughan) ; South of Fitzroy River (Mayo 



Logue). 

 Among sand hills. 



197. P. Johnstonianus (W.V.F.). n. sp. 



Stems numerous, prominent or ascending, forming a thick per- 

 ennial stock, quite glabrous ; leaves Knear to linear 

 lanceolate, acute, gradually tapering into moderately 

 long petioles ; spikes pedunculate, somewhat obovoid, 

 nvunerous and umbellate at the ends of short branchlets ; 

 the whole inflorescence forming a dense panicle, bracts 

 and bracteoles ovate-lanceolate, acute or shortly aristate, 

 half as long as the perianth ; perianth surroiinded at the 

 base by a ring of short straight hairs ; segments free al- 

 most from the base, the outer ones ovate-lanceolate, 

 obtuse, glabrous, the three inner ones narrower, nerved 



